Smart: Small Car, Big Deal

The book is amazing it goes into such find detail about the design concepts and the reality of building the smart car and may I say the book was really a pleasure to read. It has so many details to provide a great learning tool about the vehicle smart car.

excellent

Very disappointed in this book as I have read 'smart thinking' by Tony Lewin and that is a far better book for anyone wanting to know the history of how this tiny car came to be. This book reads more like an elaborate advertisement for the smart car than a factual account of the car's development. The section that covers the 2008 to current smart is very lacking in any information. Most of the book is filled with glossy pretty colour photos with very little substance.

メーカー資料を基にした内容で、他の本と大同小異だが、２代目の記事が多く入っているのは、良い。３代目が登場した現在、それをおさえた改訂版の発行を望む。

I've just finished reading four books on the smart car and this is by far the best. It begins in the beginning, with early sketches and competing designs. Then the company politics and marketing approaches are covered, along with reactions to poor sales and plans for the future. Unfortunately, since it was written in 2008 the book ends with photos of the new 451 model. A lot has happened since then.I found this book refreshingly free of the marketing jibberish that fills press releases and some other smart books. The last chapter is particularly prescient with this line: "Those who have neglected to add global warning to their agenda will face difficult times in the future."There is also a nice retrospective about how it was too bad the original car could not have been an EV or a hybrid as Nicolas Hayek dreamed, but the costs of going that route might have ended the whole smart car adventure prematurely!Lots of pictures, lots of photos, even of early prototypes, lots of design sketches. Just a great book.